


Eyes Wide Open

by livii



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who: Eighth Doctor Adventures - Various Authors
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-05
Updated: 2012-01-05
Packaged: 2017-10-28 23:23:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/313313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livii/pseuds/livii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he opens his eyes again, she’s gone.  But he doesn’t forget.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eyes Wide Open

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shinyjenni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinyjenni/gifts).



She’s standing there on the bridge, and the way the sun catches her hair makes her shine so brightly Fitz has to squint, has to look away. He closes his eyes and her imprint is burnt behind his eyelids. He shakes his head.

When he opens his eyes again, she’s gone. But he doesn’t forget.

*

He tries to ask the Doctor about her, but, as usual, the Doctor is a completely useless wanker about anything to do with girls.

If he was feeling charitable, he’d also blame the Doctor’s amnesia, but mainly, it’s really a female-shaped problem in general.

*

She appears again in the 1930s, wearing all the wrong clothes, and carrying an enormous gun. Fitz is running from the police - all a misunderstanding, really - and just catches a glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye. She’s standing in a dark doorway, looking confused and unhappy.

He stops abruptly, and she notices him. She smiles, and Fitz can only call it the smile of a cat that ate the cream. An uneasy feeling spreads over him as he realizes that he is most definitely the dairy product in this scenario.

He turns towards her, but she shakes her head, and before he can blink she’s gone again. Then he hears the heavy footsteps of the officers chasing him and he takes off; not going to figure out anything about mystery chicks while banged up in some jail cell.

*

They meet for real in 2000; Fitz, despite everything he’s learned from the Doctor, is still a little bit disappointed that this new millennium isn’t as futuristic as he thought it would be, growing up.

“This is still the past for me,” she says. Fitz just about jumps out of his skin; he’s been standing watch by the TARDIS, and didn’t hear her approaching.

“Crazy,” he says, trying to be cool but feeling sweat start to accumulate under his arms. Idiot, he thinks to himself. A girl you’ve seen twice?

She reaches out and touches his hand. Her skin is cold, but he can practically hear her pulse racing. She’s wearing the same clothes as the other two times he saw her. Weird.

“Fitz,” she says, “it’s okay. I’m temporally inconsistent and that would make almost anyone jumpy, even someone who travels in time. More so, because you can tell I’m an anomaly.”

“Sure, sure,” he says, pretending she hasn’t lost him with her explanation. She grins, and Fitz feels his knees grow weak as she pokes her tongue out between her teeth, impish and powerful at the same time.

“Can’t believe I’m talking like this,” she says, leaning back against the TARDIS next to him. “Me, really? But that’s what happens, Fitz,” she says, suddenly looking serious. “That’s what happens with him, and you have to know, and you have to be careful.”

“The Doctor?” Fitz asks. “Yeah, I know. Well, I think I do.”

“You have so far to go,” she says, shaking her head. “There are so many of you out there. But be careful. I like you, Fitz Kreiner. You helped me on one of my jumps, and I never forget a kindness.”

“I...okay,” Fitz says, “we’ve never talked before. Actually, I don’t even know your name.”

“Temporally inconsistent,” she says, grinning again. “And I promised you something last time, only we were rather rudely interrupted.”

Fitz just has a split-second to process this before she’s there, kissing him, her hair around his face and _oh god_ , it’s amazing. It’s like his whole body is alive and he can see through time and her lips are so soft and wet and _yes_ , he thinks, time travel is the best thing in the whole universe.

He whimpers when she ends the kiss, keeping his eyes shut tight in the hopes he can pretend it’s still happening. She laughs, and he reluctantly opens his eyes.

The sun has caught her hair again, but Fitz doesn’t blink, doesn’t look away.

“Good for you,” she says, nodding approvingly. “Take care of him for me, Fitz. And take care of yourself.”

She’s striding away before he can do anything else, and then, as suddenly as the other times, she’s gone.

*

It’s a year later for Fitz when she tells him her name. It’s hard not to kiss her right then and there, but he’s learned enough by now that the perfection of that one kiss has to have happened when it did, and can’t be changed.

“Rose,” he says to the Doctor that night, but the Doctor just shakes his head and shrugs apologetically.

It’s okay, Fitz thinks. He has her image in his head, her breath on his lips. Everyone keeps secrets. Rose is his.

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta-ed fluff for Fandom Stocking 2011.


End file.
